


and every time we touch

by TheQueenInTheNorth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different Framework Universe (Marvel), F/F, angsty, but it's actually 6 + 1, lowkey anti aida/fitz and not sorry for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenInTheNorth/pseuds/TheQueenInTheNorth
Summary: six times melinda and aida don't hold hands and one time they do.
Relationships: AIDA/Melinda May
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	and every time we touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalalyds2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalyds2/gifts).



Aida stands off to the side, watching everyone greeting their almost-lost friends, and feeling a little put out by the whole thing.

She can’t really say why. She was helping them. She was made to help people. She should feel good about it, shouldn’t she? Well, no, she should not feel at all, not really.

But she does. She feels  _ annoyed. _ The word is supplied to her easily, though she cannot say how she identified the emotion. She glances at the Darkhold, runs a finger along the spine.

Curiosity pushes aside the annoyance. This goes beyond whatever faux emotion she was programmed with to act as a believable decoy.

Melinda May breaks apart from the pack of celebrating agents and steps over to Aida.

“Thank you,”she says. She squeezes Aida’s hand, a touch so brief she can’t even think to react.

Aida nods and gives her a small smile.

“I’m here to help,”she says, and tries to ignore all the new feelings crashing down on her, fighting to be acknowledged. She can still feel the ghost of May’s fingers against hers.

She’s pleased, she thinks, and that wins out. Just behind that is something she has no name for. Something that makes her want to reach for May’s hand again.

* * *

Radcliffe leaves her in charge of caring for May. It’s ridiculous, really. Of course she was programmed to be well suited to caring for a human being. Radcliffe seems to have forgotten that her programming would not qualify what she is doing to the agent as taking care of her. She ought to set her free.

He either thinks the Darkhold has done less than it did or he overestimates his own abilities. He’s lucky she hasn’t settled on what her goals might be – because she can have those now – and is so just going along with his for now.

“He can be a very silly man,”Aida tells May.

The agent is unconscious, of course, but Aida still wants to try out confiding in someone and she’s not exactly spoiled for choice.

She settles the needle in the crook of May’s arm, following the vaguely visibly vein with her finger, down to May’s hand. She brushes her fingers against hers.

She wishes the agent were awake to squeeze her hand again, but she does not think May would be so inclined, even if she were conscious.

“I am sorry,”Aida says. That is a new feeling, too. It plagues her with a vengeance.“I really am. It’s just what has to happen right now.”

* * *

It’s just a casual brush of May’s fingers against hers, just enough to draw her attention away from the papers she’s brooding over.

The world she built is not what she expected. She took away their regrets and now somehow, she’s Ophelia, she’s Madame Hydra, and she’s not quite sure how she ended up being either. It’s a rather human thing, as far as she can tell, to be lost in the world, to feel you have no place in it.

“You were saying?”she asks May, who watches her across the desk with something that could be concern or could be suspicion.

She tries to focus on the report properly this time around but all she can think about is that a small, meaningless touch from this woman felt more sincere than anything Leopold could ever offer.

He was supposed to love her. She wasn’t sure how she’d ended up at that conclusion, either. But it wasn’t right, anyway, because she could kill the actual object of his feelings but she could not redirect that love. She did not even much like this version of Leopold.

Regret is an emotion she would have much rather left to the realm of theoreticals that all emotions had existed in before she’d laid eyes on the Darkhold.

There’s far too much regret in this version of reality, especially since she had taken all their regrets away. They’d all found new ones.

Like moths to the flames, they went to their doom.

Perhaps she ought to restart the timeline. May would make a better second than Leopold, wouldn’t she?

* * *

Aida learns her emotions, one by one, and tweaks the Framework with every new realisation. Some regrets lead to better things down the line. Some heartache needs to be felt.

Bahrain is the price Melinda pays for a world where she isn’t shut off completely from everyone else, though she does attempt her best at isolation.

The cubicle next to her is occupied by Aida, who very nearly introduced herself as Ophelia before thinking better of it.

Ophelia was for Leopold. Aida’s not for anyone but herself.

Aida does not leave Melinda to her brooding thoughts. She does not leave her to skipped lunch breaks and overtime and whispers behind her back.

She brings her tea and reminds her to clock out on time most days and sometimes manages to get her to come out to eat. She even makes her smile, once.

It makes her heart stumble and her fingertips tingle and her stomach clench and her cheeks go hot. For a moment, Aida thinks she’s convinced herself that she’s human so well that she made herself sick.

Then Melinda’s fingers brush against hers as she takes the proffered tea and Aida stores away the new feeling.

It's not quite love but it is something and it is hers.

And she wants more of it.

* * *

There’s no Agent Coulson in this version of things, no one to collect the legendary Agent May to his team and suddenly, there’s Hydra in power again.

Melinda’s in the ranks. Aida’s almost certain she’s a spy for the resistance. Aida isn’t but she could be, if someone gave her the chance.

What she is instead is efficient and she rises higher and higher in command. She’s still puzzling out morality, and efficiency she can do. There’s more data to collect before she can decide whether to restart the Framework another time.

She thinks she probably should but Melinda still meets her for lunch and she likes that, doesn’t know which variables led to that and doesn’t want to mess them up.

She’s shocked when Daisy Johnson throws her through a window. She never did anything to her to warrant such a thing. She would have stood aside if she had just asked.

Aida’s gotten so used to breathing that she panics when she finds she can’t, her ribs all wrong and blood in her lungs. She doesn’t need to breathe, not yet, not with her body not finished, with not quite being human.

It does nothing to calm her, to stop her from gasping for air that won’t come.

It takes her a moment to realises there’s a hand squeezing hers. Melinda’s eyes are filled with sorrow.“I’m sorry. We’re doing what we have to.”

And she flees with her fellow rebels and Aida thinks _ , so this is what betrayal feels like. _

* * *

“Lovely place you’ve got here,”Aida says. She’s gotten good at sarcasm since she discovered it.

“It’s just a safety measure,”Melinda says. It’s soft and sad.

She slides a cup of tea across the table the way Aida used to.

“You do understand I could get out of here in seconds?”Aida asks. She only reaches for the cup when there is no danger of their hands coming anywhere near each other.

Melinda smiles. That’s sad, too, but just as soft.“I figured. The team has trouble believing you meant no harm and the pod made them feel better.”

“I took their regrets away,”Aida says. She tries for haughty but it comes out all wrong. A little pleading. A little desperate.

“I know.” Melinda places her hand on the table far too casually.“They’ll understand eventually.”

Aida ignores the urge to close the gap and put her hand atop Melinda’s.

“Maybe I won’t,”she spits.

They tried to kill her and now she should wait for their forgiveness?

* * *

She is treated like any other Inhuman, requiring regular checkups and given rules to her powers.

No one could stop her from breaking the arrangement, if she wanted to. They’re lucky she’s finally figured out her goals and they so happen to be a peaceful life and an attempt at normalcy.

“You can have them send someone else to check on me, you know,”Aida says.

She does not turn away from the sunset.

“I know,”Melinda says.

Her shoulder bumps against Aida’s as she shifts a fraction closer. It could be a coincident, just her getting comfortable. Aida presses a little closer yet.

They sit like that until the stars come out; the silence is companionable. The warmth of Melinda’s arm against hers is more home than the little cottage they allowed her, far away from anyone she could do harm.

“You know,”Melinda says eventually, her fingers brushing Aida’s,“I’m not actually required to check on you for more than a few minutes.”

“I know,”Aida says and intertwines their fingers.

Melinda smiles.


End file.
